Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Every
morning, my commute to work is a strategic one. I rush to the very edge of the
platform, shoving aside tourists who aimlessly congregate in the center.
They’re too busy relishing in the newfound joys of foreign public
transportation to realize that the platform is middle-heavy. The person-to-cart
ratio is like a parabola—the two opposite ends have less exasperated humans
competing for empty seats in their section—it’s quite mathematic. If I’m
getting on a subway car, I’m getting a goddamn seat. This is partially because
I thoroughly enjoy my subway-reading ritual, and I cannot fully become
engrossed in a book if a stranger’s armpit looms five inches away from my face.
It is also because I am astoundingly lazy.

On this
particular morning, as I’m embarking on a new novel-journey with Charles
Bukowski’s Ham on Rye*, some
brilliant fellow passenger decides it would be acceptable to engage in small
talk with me. Am I the only one who thinks that reading a book is the visual
equivalent of having headphones in your ears and listening to music? Don’t
speak to me. You are being rude while pretending to be nice, which makes you
even more ill mannered. The exemption to this rule is if you are a young,
good-looking male, asking me pointed questions about the book I’m reading. Or
if you are Jake Gyllenhaal and you happen to be sitting next to me, in which
case you can do whatever you please.~Jake Gyllenhaal and the subway~*

Thankfully,
the monster got off on the next stop and I was allowed to begin this beautiful
book. I personally prefer pastrami on rye, but to each his own—Bukowski was
never one to follow the crowd, after all. His extensive list of literary publications
ranges from short poems to full-blown novels, and his semi-autobiographical
pieces often portray him in a loner light. This novel is no exception. Using
the pseudonym Henry Chinaski, it is an unapologetic account of his blighted
path from childhood to young adulthood, growing up in Los Angeles during the
Great Depression. Fun times! Often the brunt of physical fights and the
poster-boy for athletic disappointment, Chinaski is denounced by the majority
of his peers as a renegade from the “mainstream”. In fact, he enjoys being
alone; when boys do latch themselves on to him, their company is unwelcome and he
feels that they embody a weakness that he does not wish to be associated with. For instance, in response to an English class
assignment on “The Value of Friendship”, he writes an essay titled “The Value
of No Friendship At All”, which triumphantly receives a “D” (Bukowski, 161). He
simply prefers to operate independently, and this brutally honest predilection contributes
to the misconstrual of his character.

The novel
centers on violence and bitterness, directed towards both his classmates and
family. His father is a truly awful man who mercilessly beats him with a razor
strop for things as trivial as missing a blade of grass while mowing. I honestly
thought—and actually hoped—that at some point Chinaski would murder his soulless
dad. I love noting whom the author dedicates his/her book to and pondering why
they are the chosen one(s). In this case, Bukowski says his novel is “for all
the fathers”… as in, this book is a how-to for dads who strive to be dicks.

As he ages, Chinaski’s antisocial
tendencies amplify and he is consistently hostile in his interactions with
others. He has an obsession with possessing a “badness” related to being a man,
which results in a douchey, goon-like overcompensation. For example, he tries
to get the most demerits at school, drinks himself to oblivion on a regular
basis, and arbitrarily picks fights with boys who can clearly beat his ass.
God, I am so thankful that I am a woman. Still, the range of the novel is
intentional—while he is not the most likeable guy, readers are sympathetic to
his rocky past and joyless upbringing.

To cope with life, Chinaski finds
solace in reading and writing…and that’s pretty much it. He claims, “Words were
things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let yourself feel
the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter what happened to
you” (Bukowski, 152). Not only were his novels a form of much-needed therapy,
he could also look up to the authors for guidance, reassurance, and
relatability. He states, “To me, these men who had come into my life from
nowhere were my only chance. They were the only voices that spoke to me”
(Bukowski, 152). He appreciates books that don’t bullshit (and then he turns
around and writes some non-bullshitting books himself).

Speaking of
bullshit, Chinaski thinks people are full of it. Ham on Rye is a coming-of-age novel set in a hardship-ridden time
when you wouldn’t want to be any age at all, much less have to navigate
potential career-paths and figure out women. Of course he’s angst-y! Chinaski
is basically a less annoying version of Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye, mainly in that
he communicates his cynicism in a more focused way. He believes that finding a
job is essentially a forced choosing between the lesser of multiple evils. Ruminating
on this dilemma, he admits, “I had no interest in anything. I had no idea how I
was going to escape… But there was no place to go. Suicide? Jesus Christ, just
more work. I felt like sleeping for five years but they wouldn’t let me”
(Bukowski, 175). Yet as he delves deeper into this desire for nothingness in a
meaningless world, he discovers an obscure sense of superiority. “The life of
the sane, average man was dull, worse than death” and he’d rather reason
realistically than pretend that everything is fine (Bukowski, 274). Life is not
always Chili’s and rainbows, unfortunately, but better to face the facts than
act like one of Caulfield’s “phonies”.

This novel
is a good book to throw open when you feel bad about yourself and you don’t
want a fake, hearty slap on the back and a bogus encouragement that things will
get better. Instead, you want someone to sit down next to you at the bar, hand
you a drink, and agree that things suck. Furthermore, Bukoswki keeps things
interesting with his acerbic wit. Like when he discusses the draft, saying, “as
for me, I had no desire to go to war to protect the life I had or what future I
might have…with Hitler around, maybe I’d even get a piece of ass now and then
and more than a week allowance” (Bukowski, 236). Nothing like a Hitler joke to
really confirm your lack of national pride. Overall, Ham on Rye receives 4 out of 5 camel humps. The content is
entertaining and hauntingly genuine, but there are moments when Bukowski’s
unrestrained vulgarity is a tad bit overboard for my taste. Every book needs a
little boorishness to spice it up, but it burns my mouth a little too much to
earn the full five humps.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Anti-NMDA
receptor encephalitis. Now that’s not something you hear every day. Healthcare gurus can move on, but listen up laymen! Humans have something called a
blood-brain barrier, which selectively determines what is allowed to pass from
our blood to our brain juice. Picture Gandalf wielding a staff and yelling, “YOU CAN NOT PASS” at
unsuspecting molecules. Or Gretchen Wieners from Mean Girls snapping, “You can’t sit with us!” Just substitute “sit” with “swim in
extracellular fluid”.

For the most part, the
lymphocytes that comprise our immune system do not have their names on the bouncer’s list and are not
allowed into the brain juice; however, on days when the barrier is feeling especially cheerful, he lets a few
B-cells and T-cells mosey inside for a routine checkup. For reasons unclear to people more medically
competent than me, Susannah Cahalan’s lymphocytes decided to squeeze past the blood-brain barrier
without permission and stage a coup d’état. Her immune system handled the situation like an evil dictator
who decides that if he’s going to be destroyed, everything else might as well go down in flames alongside
him. It created an army of pathologic autoantibodies—proteins which assault the body’s healthy cells. In
Susannah’s case, these autoantibodies started to attack her NMDA receptors, which are responsible for
overseeing important operations like memory and neuroplasticity. Justifiably angry, her brain became
enormously inflamed, and formerly functioning synaptic connections went completely haywire. Her
lymphocytes had crashed her brain’s party, lit a bunch of candles to set the mood, and then knocked
them all over the place, leaving her brain on fire. Symptoms of this disease include, but are not limited to: paranoia, psychosis,
catatonia, violent episodes, seizures, speech difficulties, and a myriad of
cognitive impairments. Susannah Cahalan, the author of Brain on Fire*,
and survivor of this debilitating disease, exhibited all of the above. Casual.

The autobiography is split into three, equally
mesmerizing sections. The first, “Crazy”, details her out-of-the-blue physical
and mental deterioration. At one moment, she is an ambitious extrovert, working
as a successful reporter for the New York Post. The next, she is plagued
by paranoid delusions and holds a tenuous grasp on reality. Multiple feeble diagnoses
are thrown at her in an attempt to explain her sudden capriciousness, none of
which fit the bill. Her case is extraordinarily inexact and, in her twisted
state of mind, she is not the most accommodating patient. She repeatedly tries
to escape from the hospital, convinced that the medical personnel are trying to
hurt her rather than help. At one point, she punches a nurse in her fury; at
another, she randomly rips her IV out of her arm mid-insertion.

The second chapter, “The Clock”, introduces a
new doctor—a highly esteemed neurologist who makes her life-saving diagnosis.
As Susannah’s mother says, Dr. Najjar is “a real-life Dr. House” (Cahalan, 136). Note: he is not nearly as sexy as Hugh Laurie. While having a name for her
disease and being able to react in accordance is certainly a positive thing, it
does not eliminate her suffering. To confirm the diagnosis, she has two spinal
taps and a brain biopsy (a brain biopsy?!?). To combat the sickness—throw some
water on the flames, if you will—she is put on an aggressive treatment regimen
involving steroids (with numerous side effects), lengthy infusions to correct
her immune deficiencies, and plasmapheresis (a fancy way of saying that her bad
plasma is replaced with good plasma). Furthermore, the implications of her
illness are largely unclear. Though there is finally a face to her diabolical
disease, the journey afterward is quite uncertain. After all, in the spring of
2009, she was only the 217th person to ever be diagnosed with
anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis (Cahalan, 226). There was not even a
Wikipedia page for her disease at the time (Cahalan, 207)! How the hell did
anyone learn about it? Dr. Najjar estimates that “90 percent of people
suffering from this disease during the time when [she] was treated in 2009 went
undiagnosed” (Cahalan, 223). How many thousands of people were incorrectly labeled
with a mental illness when the underlying problem was immunological and
potentially reversible? She had the luxury of financial resources, familial
support, access to exceptional practitioners, and a stroke of timely luck. Just a few years prior to the onset of her symptoms, developments at a lab at the
University of Pennsylvania made her definitive diagnosis possible.

The final portion, “In Search of Lost Time”,
follows her discharge and subsequent maneuvering of post-hospitalization
obstacles. Her cognitive deficits proved especially tough to overcome and she
repeatedly scored in the “borderline impaired range” on multiple tests
(Cahalan, 191). Susannah was deeply aware of the fact that her previously sharp
mental skills were no longer up to par, which exacerbated the humiliation she
already felt in social situations due to her altered appearance. You don’t
waltz out of the hospital after such a traumatic event looking like a
Victoria’s Secret model. For months, her self-worth was shattered. Her disease
had been mildly publicized, but few people knew the details of her illness or
appreciated the intricacies of her sufferings.

Throughout it all, in spite of the madness,
spurts of the old Susannah would sporadically surface, giving her family and
boyfriend hope that the real her was shoved down in there somewhere, capable of
reemerging. When she was admitted to the hospital following a slew of seizures,
her loved ones had no idea what the outcome would be. Yet, they remained
incredibly loyal to her in her time of need. Her boyfriend, Stephen, is the man. I
mean, they had only been dating for four months before her psychotic breakdown
erupted. During the recovery process,
Susannah questioned why he had so solidly stood by her side. His response? “Because
I love you, and I wanted to, and I knew you were in there” (Cahalan, 184).
Someone get Ryan Gosling in here and let’s make a Nicholas Spark film…this is
too good (I later discovered that a theatrical adaptation is in fact underway,
produced by Charlize Theron and starring Dakota Fanning)*. Honorable mention to
her mom and dad, who were also awesome at coping with the situation at hand.

Susannah recuperated from her tragic, and
nearly deadly, circumstance like a total rockstar. It is unfathomable to me
how she managed to move from: mysterious psychotic affliction >>>
similarly cryptic diagnosis that completely wrecked her cognitive abilities
>>> best-selling author. My first year of college, I was in and out of
the university hospital for a couple of months with a kidney problem that left
doctors puzzled. At one point, I was told I had lupus; at another, I was
informed that I would need to be put on dialysis. Thankfully, I ended up healthily strutting out of there with a dual middle finger to my kidneys for
succumbing to some rando virus. It was terrifying at the time, but it has
become the brunt of many kidney donation jokes and I like having those in my
comedic arsenal. Sure, I was upset at the prospect of lupus ruining my ability
to tan, but I was not losing my goddamn mind. Susannah was on the verge of
being institutionalized. Everything was falling apart for her! “The mind
is like a circuit of Christmas tree lights. When the brain works well, all of
the lights twinkle brilliantly, and it’s adaptable enough that, often, even if
one bulb goes out, the rest will still shine on. But depending on where the
damage is, sometimes that one blown bulb can make the whole strand go dark”
(Cahalan, 83).

She also happens to be a phenomenal writer.
Not entirely surprising coming from an accomplished journalist, but still. I
was beyond impressed with her harrowing recollection; she articulated her
emotional rollercoaster in a manner that made me feel like I had experienced it
with her. Furthermore, she is stunningly adept at translating complex
neurological processes in digestible terms. You can tell she did her research. She
is the poster-girl for advocating an idea that I have argued for for quite some
time—the necessity of cooperation among psychological, neurological, and
immunological sciences (Cahalan, 225). You can have all sorts of capable
doctors assisting with your case, but the real profundity occurs when different
fields are working in unison.

Between her riveting story and her captivating
writing, I give this autobiography 5 out of 5 camel humps. Tell me you don’t like
this book and I will tell you that you don’t have a heart. Her struggle is
incredibly moving, the response to her aberrant brain is humbling, and her
ability to rise above such a helpless situation brings me joy. The book was so spellbinding
that I finished all 250 pages of it in less than 29 hours. This is a testament
to the author’s allure as well as the fact that I clearly have no life. I
gobbled this book up like I did with Gone Girl, except this time I
was actually learning about something valuable rather than eagerly reading
about a malevolent bitch. I recommend this to anyone and everyone who has a
soul and wants to learn a little bit about how your brain can screw you over.

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Lyndsay West

About Me

I’m a 25 year old lover of reading and writing. I was born and raised in Dallas, Texas, and I graduated from the University of Virginia in 2013. Currently, I live in New York City making my writing mark on the world via freelance work. Other interests include religious studies, philosophy, psychology, dancing, and live music.

Follow my twitter: @humpdayhardback

*Words underlined/highlighted in red are links to websites with more info on the topic.